Police: Teens blackmail bus driver over sex acts

Thursday

Two high school students used Facebook to try to extort $60 from a school bus driver with whom they engaged in sexual activity, according to police.

Two high school students used Facebook to try to extort $60 from a school bus driver with whom they engaged in sexual activity, according to police.

The female bus driver, Kwanda Carpenter, 33, faces two charges of sexual activity with a student by school personnel other than a teacher.

She was booked into jail on Wednesday night on a $5,000 bond. She has been suspended from her bus driving duties at Bessemer City High School with pay pending a school system investigation, said schools spokeswoman Bonnie Reidy.

Carpenter denied having sexual contact with the students, according to Star news partner WSOC-TV.

The conduct did not come to light until Carpenter went to a school resource officer to complain about a private Facebook message the two boys sent her, said Gaston County Police Sgt. Josh Hamlin, who oversees the county’s school resource officers.

“The (students) sent her a Facebook message trying to extort money from her for not reporting the sexual contact,” Hamlin said.

The students sought $60.

Hamlin said the two teenagers, both 17 years old, have already been charged with blackmail, although that information has not yet been confirmed.

Reidy said she was unaware of the students’ involvement and did not know whether they would also face school discipline.

The sexual activity did not occur at school nor on the school bus, but rather in the bus driver’s private car at a dead-end road near the boys’ homes, according to authorities.

Carpenter, who is married, according to police, picked the two teenagers up about 10 p.m. on their street in the first week of October and engaged in a sexual activity with both of them, police said. The two guys could not remember the exact date, Hamlin said, although the warrants list Oct. 3 as the date of offense.

She did not force the two boys to have sex, but sexual contact between a school employee and a student remains against the law, Hamlin said.

The two students broke the law when they tried to force Carpenter to pay hush money.

“They’ve both been charged with blackmail,” Hamlin said.

Carpenter reported the Facebook threat to the school resource officer on Jan. 11, at which time she was suspended with pay.

The threat came to her sometime in early January, Hamlin said.

At this time, the Star has not decided whether to name the two young men in part because they have accused someone of a sex crime.

However, a relative of one of the young men said Thursday morning that her grandson was at school this morning.

Reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823.

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